DIRECTOR TANG Shu-wing loves everything that makes Princess Changping a Cantonese opera classic: the splendid costumes, opulent set, colourful makeup and that famous libretto in the ominous finale, describing how falling petals are shading the moon.
'Now, let's take all that away so we can focus on the drama and the story,' says the 47-year-old lecturer at the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts.
Di Nu Hua (Princess Changping) is a minimalist take on the Tong Tik-sang piece, which the stage veteran says will augment, rather than distort, the original. He's approaching the work the same way he did with last year's William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Jean Racine's Phaedra (for which he was named best director at this year's Hong Kong Drama Awards). His latest effort, also an APA production, will run from January 15 to 20 and is part of next year's Sixth Chinese Drama Festival.
Princess Changping is a tragic tale of the doomed romance between the scholar Zhou Shixian and a Ming dynasty princess, Changping.
The original production, featuring the famous operatic pair Yam Kim-fai and Pak Suet-sin, was first staged in 1957 and became one of the most popular pieces in the Tong repertoire.
Tang says the fact the work is an important part of this city's heritage - and almost everyone has heard of it - gives him a good reason to revive it. 'Princess Changping is a piece of collective memory for Hong Kong people, whether they like Cantonese opera or are Yam and Pak fans or not, it's something they all know,' he says.
